Casey Nagel's Staging Area

This race was so well produced! The expo had great energy and a ton of optional swag to buy for the race in a great range of colors. The morning of the race was very easy with an on-time start. The wind off the water is very real so it’s nice that half the time it’s at your back. I felt like the course had spectators nearly all the time which was so wonderful! The medals and the shirts are both very high quality, and the donuts and chowder at the end were plentiful!

Big shoutout to how happy and helpful the Volunteers were!

A very charming small town race that was put on very well! The expo was just bib and shirt pick up and was seamless. The race started on time and had great music and an announcer. You really do not run very far away from the water at all which was great although the wind for our race was definitely blowing! Overall great course and a fun finish line with a beer garden! Thanks for a great race day!

This race is amazing! The expo was simple but good energy, the line for getting your bib did get kind of long but wasn’t too crazy.

The start line was a wide open area with plenty of bathrooms. They had a guided stretch and a really excellent electric guitar national anthem before an on-time start! The first 3 miles are totally down hill so I flew into the next 10 miles of rolling hills. The walkers had started an hour before us which I had originally thought was strange but then ended up loving it as they would cheer me (and I would cheer them) on as I ran by them on the course. The altitude is definitely no joke on your performance up here (and I only showed up to Tahoe, one day before) but the views all made up for it!

Really well put on and fun race in Nashville! Expo, start line and finish line were all very well run and enjoyable! The course was the best kind of challenging (that bridge hill at mile 12… woof)!

I don’t think I could say enough positive things about this race. I did the “Wine Pairing” which was the Rose 5k on Saturday and the Half on Sunday. Packet pick-up before the 5k was beyond easy and took less than 5 minutes. Parking in Sonoma plaza was a breeze. The starting area was spacious for all of us and we started right on time. The 5k was well marked and a beautiful tour of the neighborhood around Sonoma Plaza.

The half marathon morning had easy runner drop-off pretty close to the start line. I was there an hour before and was able to use the port-a-potties twice before the lines got really crazy. We were delayed by 12 minutes starting but the race MC kept us very updated.

The Half starts with a quarter mile big hill that gets you pumped for the rolling hills that follow! The aid stations were great and the kid volunteers made me smile! Not a ton of spectators on the course but the scenery made up for that. There was a place around mile 8 where people posted up to cheer us on which helped a ton as I was getting a little tired right then. The finish line is right as you enter Sonoma plaza and the cheering was wonderful there! The medals are really wonderfully wine barrel themed.

The race was so amazing and the wine festival after was the perfect cherry on top! Never felt too crowded and there were tons of food options! Truly was the best way to wind down from a half! Thank you so much to the organizers and volunteers for this race! It was SPECTACULAR!

Well organized expo, although the line to get my packet was a little long. Race started really well, and the post race bar situation was great!